A Portage teen who
crashed his SUV on U.S. Highway 6 in October, in an accident which took the
life of his passenger, is facing five felony charges after the Porter County
Sheriff’s Police said that he was found to have opiates in his system.
Charles H. Stilley,
18, with listed addresses in both Portage and Salesville, Ohio, was charged
on Monday with four different counts of operating while
intoxicated--including OWI-causing death and OWI-with a controlled substance
in the blood--and one count of reckless homicide.
According to
police, at 11:42 a.m. Oct. 28 Stilley, driving a 2000 Mercedes Benz SUV, was
westbound on U.S. 6, in the area of C.R. 200W in Liberty Township, when he
crossed the center line and his vehicle left the roadway, striking a tree
stump and then flipping onto its driver’s side in a swampy area.
Stilley’s
passenger, Kyanna Otero, 19, also of Portage, was pronounced dead at the
scene.
Stilley, who
sustained internal injuries and head lacerations, was transported to Porter
Regional Hospital, where he reportedly advised an attending physician that
he’d used heroin earlier in the day, around 9 a.m., police said in the
probable cause affidavit.
Stilley also tested
positive for opiates and cannabinoids in a urine sample “taken in the normal
course of treatment,” police said.
On two subsequent
blood draws, authorized through a search warrant, Stilley tested positive
for “morphine and marijuana,” police added.
Meanwhile, a PCSP
officer found in Stilley’s wallet a “two-page note” which “stated that it
was to be read when he was dead and indicated that he may take his life,”
police also said.
And in an interview
conducted with another officer at the hospital, Stilley advised that he’d
driven from Ohio “to pick up” Otero at a relative’s house, that he arrived
there around 3 or 4 a.m., and that on his arrival they both used heroin,
with Otero injecting him and then herself, police said.
The most serious
charges against Stilley, OWI-causing death and reckless homicide, are Class
5 felonies punishable by a term of one to six years.